The history of your favorite Easter traditions

1 of 17

Religious: The Timing of "Easter"

The celebration of Easter takes place around the world, but few cultures refer to the holiday by that name. Early Christians called the celebration of Christ's resurrection "Pesach," the Hebrew word for Passover; today, most languages use a variation of that name: "Pesach" in French, "Pâques" in Spanish, "Pasqua" in Italian, "Pashkë" in Albanian and "Pask" in Swedish.

Our English word, Easter, comes from a stranger source: a pagan fertility goddess named Eostre (also known as Astarte or Oster). The festival of Eostre always took place around the spring equinox; so early Christian missionaries in Europe gradually melded the festival's name, timing and some of its symbols into the Christian celebration.

"Eventually, the Christian celebration took the place of the pagan festival."

2 of 17

Religious: Lent

One of the reasons we usually have a big feast on Easter is because of Lent. Originally, Lent required people to fast for 40 days (excluding Sundays), but these days it's more commonly observed by having people give up an indulgence, like caffeine, chocolate, television or social media.

As early as the 14th century, the Catholic Church discovered drama and ritual as effective methods for teaching the gospel to a populace that couldn't read, write or speak the traditional Latin used in church. The church developed practices, such as the Stations of the Cross and the Passion Play, to tell the story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection in accessible and compelling ways.

According to the Catholic News Service, the Stations of the Cross originally described a physical pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where participants would travel to 14 sacred sites related to Jesus' death and crucifixion, reciting prayers and singing songs. Eventually, Catholic Americans developed a spiritual practice of replicating the pilgrimage in their local churches, reciting the same prayers and songs.

The Passion Play, a dramatic presentation of Christ's trial, sufferings and death, became popular in the Catholic Church in the 15th century. One of the most famous in Oberammergau, Germany, started in the early 1600s, when the town vowed to perform a Passion Play every decade if God would spare the town from the plague. The death rate dropped dramatically after the play was held in the town cemetery, and the play has been performed in Oberammergau to sold-out crowds ever since.

In the U.S., modern Passion Plays often take the form of blockbuster movies, such as Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" released in 2004.

4 of 17

Religious: Lamb vs. Ham

Although the choice of what to serve for Easter dinner might come down to taste preference, for others the menu holds great significance.

In early Jewish history, lambs were sacrificed as offerings to God and served regularly as part of the Passover feast. Then when Jesus died during Passover, he became representative of the ultimate sacrifice for sin, the "lamb of God," and the animal evolved into a potent symbol for Christians, especially at Easter. Many Orthodox Christians still follow the Jewish Orthodox customs of not eating any pork so lamb takes center stage at their Easter meal.

Others, however, wouldn't imagine Easter without ham. Symbolizing "good luck" for many cultures around the world, it made a fitting meal at all sorts of feasts and celebrations, according to the Encyclopedia of Religion. Some historians believe Easter's spring timing also factored into the choice: Farmers typically slaughtered pigs in the fall and then took several months to smoke the pork, making a ham ready just in time for Easter dinner.

5 of 17

Celebratory: The Easter Bunny

Like many Easter traditions, the Easter bunny evolved out of ancient fertility and spring celebrations. Rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, and give birth in the spring. So, in places where the fields became overrun with baby bunnies, it was natural to incorporate the rabbit as a symbol for spring and, eventually, Easter.

From colored eggs to chocolate eggs to egg hunts, nothing says "Easter" like the incredible edible. Yet our modern take on collecting, dying and decorating eggs comes from a tradition dating back thousands of years, long before the time of Jesus Christ.

Many ancient cultures, including the Greeks and Egyptians, saw eggs as a sign of fertility and new life; they used eggs in religious rituals and hung them in pagan temples for mystical purposes, says Martha Zimmerman in her book "Celebrating the Christian Year."

Later, as Christian missionaries observed community members hunting for eggs in spring, they began using the food as a tool to describe Christ's new birth in resurrection.

"They would dye the eggs based on what colors meant to the church: yellow for resurrection, blue for love, red for the blood of Christ. Or, they would paint various scenes from the Bible on eggs and hide them; the child who found the egg would come back and tell the story painted on that egg," says Collins.

Another interpretation says that the Easter basket tradition began much earlier with farmers in Middle Eastern cultures. They would reportedly bring seedlings in a basket to be blessed in hopes of having a bountiful harvest.

8 of 17

Celebratory: Easter Candy

Every child knows that no Easter egg hunt is complete without the real prize: candy. Exchanging chocolates and other sweets at Easter gained popularity in Europe during the mid-19th century, as companies developed methods for mass producing sweets and unveiled confections in fancy holiday shapes and packages, like Cadbury eggs, which made their debut in 1875.

Jelly beans likely evolved from early fruit jellies such as Turkish Delight, a Middle Eastern delicacy. They entered the U.S. market sometime in the late-19th century, but didn't gain their Easter association until the 1930s, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America.

"We find no print reason for hawking jelly beans at Easter. It might be the shape [they look like eggs, which are connected with Easter] and color [bright or pastel]," says Lynne Olver, a food historian and editor of Foodtimeline.org.

As for the most important Easter candy question, "How do you eat a chocolate Easter bunny?," three out of four Americans start with the ears first, according to a survey by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and National Confectioners Association.

Purchasing a new holiday outfit may seem like a 20th century commercial invention but even early Christians followed the practice of wearing new clothes for Easter. "It was the one time of year when, if you had new clothes, you wore them. You dressed in your finest to go to church as a manner of honoring the resurrected savior," says Collins.

In America, stores soon latched onto the idea that creating Easter outfits and sales during the season would help them sell fancy bonnets for little girls and women or suits for boys and men. City-goers took to promenading down the street to show off their new attire, which on New York's Fifth Avenue eventually drew thousands of people and came to be known as the Easter Parade. The song "Easter Parade," written by Irving Berlin in 1933 and popularized by Bing Crosby in the movie "Holiday Inn" (1942) captured the fanciful mood of this new tradition.

11 of 17

Celebratory: Hot Cross Buns

These round breads embellished with crosses have been traced back to ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, where such foods served as symbols of honor toward their goddesses, according to the Oxford Companion to Food. Later, these sweet breads filled with currants and spices became popular Easter traditions, especially in England where bakers were forbidden to sell spice breads except on special holidays like the Friday before Easter.

Many English believed cross buns baked on Good Friday would never grow moldy; they were kept as good luck charms hanging in windows, accompanied sailors on a voyage or buried in piles of grain to ward off rodents. Today, they're mostly representations of the Christian symbol of the cross, and a sweet, buttery addition to an elegant Easter meal.

12 of 17

Celebratory: Easter Egg Hunts

The Easter egg has pre-Christian associations with spring, but much later, Christians related eggs to the resurrection of Jesus. The egg became a symbol for the tomb from which Jesus rose, just days after the crucifixion.

The first egg hunt can be traced back to Martin Luther, a central figure during the Protestant Reformation — men hid the eggs for women and children to find, probably because of this association between eggs and Jesus's tomb. The happy act of finding an Easter egg during the hunt is supposed to remind us of the joy that the women (believed to be Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Salome) felt when they came to Jesus' cave and found it empty.

13 of 17

Celebratory: Chocolate Bunnies

It's hard to know exactlywho created the first chocolate bunny, but it was probably someone of German descent, in either Germany or America. By 19th century Germany, pastry and sugar bunnies (some had hard boiled eggs inside of them) were in production and bunny-shaped tins, used for chocolate molds, have been traced back to Munich in the 1850s.

Jury's still out, though, because around the same time, Robert L. Strohecker, a business man in Pennsylvania, placed a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit in his drugstore's window. By 1925, people in the U.S. could order chocolate bunnies, a special Easter treat, from a catalog. The rest is (chocolate heaven) history.

14 of 17

Celebratory: Egg Tapping

Egg tapping, a common Easter game, goes by lots of different names — egg fighting, egg knocking, egg pacqueing, egg boxing, egg picking or egg jarping, just to name a few — and involves two people knocking the pointed ends of the eggs together until one egg cracks. The winner is the person whose egg has cracked the most eggs.

Egg tapping has origins in medieval times, where it was practiced during the Easter festival in Poland. The competition prevailed — a British prisoner of war observed one during the Revolutionary War. To this day, egg-tapping competitions are held in many areas of the world, including England and the U.S., and the event very seriously —­ every year on Easter, Marksville, Louisiana hosts an official egg tapping competition, complete with strict rules and regulations. Winners must prove their eggs are not fake by breaking them and eating them at the end of the event.

15 of 17

Celebratory: The White House Easter Egg Roll

The tradition of the White House Easter Egg roll dates back to 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes opened the White House lawn for the tradition after being approached by some children on one of his daily walks. Previously, children had celebrated Easter by playing games on Capitol Hill, but Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill banning the practice.

The White House Easter Egg Roll is still a tradition today. Besides the Egg Roll, the celebration also features stations where children and their families can decorate cookies, dye eggs and participate in an Easter Egg hunt.

PHOTO: Pool/Getty Images North America/Getty Images

16 of 17

International: Giant Omelette

To make an omelette, you've got to crack a few eggs ... or about 15,000 if you happen to live in Bessières, France. This town's Easter tradition involves making a huge omelette cooked in a frying pan with a diameter of nearly 14 feet.

The tradition likely owes its origin to Napoleon Bonaparte. As he and his army were passing through the area, he reportedly had an omelette that he enjoyed so much that he asked the villagers to make one that could feed his entire army.

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17 of 17

International: Explosion of the Cart

In the U.S., we usually save fireworks for the 4th of July, but Florence uses them as part of an elaborate Easter celebration. A cart is packed with fireworks and led through the streets of the city before stopping outside the Duomo Cathedral. This 350-year-old Easter tradition is called Scoppio del Carro which translates to "explosion of the cart."

Once the cart stops in front of the Cathedral, the Archbishop of Florence lights a fuse during the Easter mass, setting off a lively fireworks display. The entire show is reportedly meant to ensure a good harvest.

The celebration of Easter takes place around the world, but few cultures refer to the holiday by that name. Early Christians called the celebration of Christ's resurrection "Pesach," the Hebrew word for Passover; today, most languages use a variation of that name: "Pesach" in French, "Pâques" in Spanish, "Pasqua" in Italian, "Pashkë" in Albanian and "Pask" in Swedish.

Our English word, Easter, comes from a stranger source: a pagan fertility goddess named Eostre (also known as Astarte or Oster). The festival of Eostre always took place around the spring equinox; so early Christian missionaries in Europe gradually melded the festival's name, timing and some of its symbols into the Christian celebration.

"Eventually, the Christian celebration took the place of the pagan festival."

Religious: Lent

One of the reasons we usually have a big feast on Easter is because of Lent. Originally, Lent required people to fast for 40 days (excluding Sundays), but these days it's more commonly observed by having people give up an indulgence, like caffeine, chocolate, television or social media.

As early as the 14th century, the Catholic Church discovered drama and ritual as effective methods for teaching the gospel to a populace that couldn't read, write or speak the traditional Latin used in church. The church developed practices, such as the Stations of the Cross and the Passion Play, to tell the story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection in accessible and compelling ways.

According to the Catholic News Service, the Stations of the Cross originally described a physical pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where participants would travel to 14 sacred sites related to Jesus' death and crucifixion, reciting prayers and singing songs. Eventually, Catholic Americans developed a spiritual practice of replicating the pilgrimage in their local churches, reciting the same prayers and songs.

The Passion Play, a dramatic presentation of Christ's trial, sufferings and death, became popular in the Catholic Church in the 15th century. One of the most famous in Oberammergau, Germany, started in the early 1600s, when the town vowed to perform a Passion Play every decade if God would spare the town from the plague. The death rate dropped dramatically after the play was held in the town cemetery, and the play has been performed in Oberammergau to sold-out crowds ever since.

In the U.S., modern Passion Plays often take the form of blockbuster movies, such as Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" released in 2004.

Religious: Lamb vs. Ham

Although the choice of what to serve for Easter dinner might come down to taste preference, for others the menu holds great significance.

In early Jewish history, lambs were sacrificed as offerings to God and served regularly as part of the Passover feast. Then when Jesus died during Passover, he became representative of the ultimate sacrifice for sin, the "lamb of God," and the animal evolved into a potent symbol for Christians, especially at Easter. Many Orthodox Christians still follow the Jewish Orthodox customs of not eating any pork so lamb takes center stage at their Easter meal.

Others, however, wouldn't imagine Easter without ham. Symbolizing "good luck" for many cultures around the world, it made a fitting meal at all sorts of feasts and celebrations, according to the Encyclopedia of Religion. Some historians believe Easter's spring timing also factored into the choice: Farmers typically slaughtered pigs in the fall and then took several months to smoke the pork, making a ham ready just in time for Easter dinner.

Celebratory: The Easter Bunny

Like many Easter traditions, the Easter bunny evolved out of ancient fertility and spring celebrations. Rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, and give birth in the spring. So, in places where the fields became overrun with baby bunnies, it was natural to incorporate the rabbit as a symbol for spring and, eventually, Easter.

From colored eggs to chocolate eggs to egg hunts, nothing says "Easter" like the incredible edible. Yet our modern take on collecting, dying and decorating eggs comes from a tradition dating back thousands of years, long before the time of Jesus Christ.

Many ancient cultures, including the Greeks and Egyptians, saw eggs as a sign of fertility and new life; they used eggs in religious rituals and hung them in pagan temples for mystical purposes, says Martha Zimmerman in her book "Celebrating the Christian Year."

Later, as Christian missionaries observed community members hunting for eggs in spring, they began using the food as a tool to describe Christ's new birth in resurrection.

"They would dye the eggs based on what colors meant to the church: yellow for resurrection, blue for love, red for the blood of Christ. Or, they would paint various scenes from the Bible on eggs and hide them; the child who found the egg would come back and tell the story painted on that egg," says Collins.

Another interpretation says that the Easter basket tradition began much earlier with farmers in Middle Eastern cultures. They would reportedly bring seedlings in a basket to be blessed in hopes of having a bountiful harvest.

Celebratory: Easter Candy

Every child knows that no Easter egg hunt is complete without the real prize: candy. Exchanging chocolates and other sweets at Easter gained popularity in Europe during the mid-19th century, as companies developed methods for mass producing sweets and unveiled confections in fancy holiday shapes and packages, like Cadbury eggs, which made their debut in 1875.

Jelly beans likely evolved from early fruit jellies such as Turkish Delight, a Middle Eastern delicacy. They entered the U.S. market sometime in the late-19th century, but didn't gain their Easter association until the 1930s, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America.

"We find no print reason for hawking jelly beans at Easter. It might be the shape [they look like eggs, which are connected with Easter] and color [bright or pastel]," says Lynne Olver, a food historian and editor of Foodtimeline.org.

As for the most important Easter candy question, "How do you eat a chocolate Easter bunny?," three out of four Americans start with the ears first, according to a survey by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and National Confectioners Association.

Purchasing a new holiday outfit may seem like a 20th century commercial invention but even early Christians followed the practice of wearing new clothes for Easter. "It was the one time of year when, if you had new clothes, you wore them. You dressed in your finest to go to church as a manner of honoring the resurrected savior," says Collins.

In America, stores soon latched onto the idea that creating Easter outfits and sales during the season would help them sell fancy bonnets for little girls and women or suits for boys and men. City-goers took to promenading down the street to show off their new attire, which on New York's Fifth Avenue eventually drew thousands of people and came to be known as the Easter Parade. The song "Easter Parade," written by Irving Berlin in 1933 and popularized by Bing Crosby in the movie "Holiday Inn" (1942) captured the fanciful mood of this new tradition.

Celebratory: Hot Cross Buns

These round breads embellished with crosses have been traced back to ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, where such foods served as symbols of honor toward their goddesses, according to the Oxford Companion to Food. Later, these sweet breads filled with currants and spices became popular Easter traditions, especially in England where bakers were forbidden to sell spice breads except on special holidays like the Friday before Easter.

Many English believed cross buns baked on Good Friday would never grow moldy; they were kept as good luck charms hanging in windows, accompanied sailors on a voyage or buried in piles of grain to ward off rodents. Today, they're mostly representations of the Christian symbol of the cross, and a sweet, buttery addition to an elegant Easter meal.

Celebratory: Easter Egg Hunts

The Easter egg has pre-Christian associations with spring, but much later, Christians related eggs to the resurrection of Jesus. The egg became a symbol for the tomb from which Jesus rose, just days after the crucifixion.

The first egg hunt can be traced back to Martin Luther, a central figure during the Protestant Reformation — men hid the eggs for women and children to find, probably because of this association between eggs and Jesus's tomb. The happy act of finding an Easter egg during the hunt is supposed to remind us of the joy that the women (believed to be Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Salome) felt when they came to Jesus' cave and found it empty.

Celebratory: Chocolate Bunnies

It's hard to know exactlywho created the first chocolate bunny, but it was probably someone of German descent, in either Germany or America. By 19th century Germany, pastry and sugar bunnies (some had hard boiled eggs inside of them) were in production and bunny-shaped tins, used for chocolate molds, have been traced back to Munich in the 1850s.

Jury's still out, though, because around the same time, Robert L. Strohecker, a business man in Pennsylvania, placed a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit in his drugstore's window. By 1925, people in the U.S. could order chocolate bunnies, a special Easter treat, from a catalog. The rest is (chocolate heaven) history.

Celebratory: Egg Tapping

Egg tapping, a common Easter game, goes by lots of different names — egg fighting, egg knocking, egg pacqueing, egg boxing, egg picking or egg jarping, just to name a few — and involves two people knocking the pointed ends of the eggs together until one egg cracks. The winner is the person whose egg has cracked the most eggs.

Egg tapping has origins in medieval times, where it was practiced during the Easter festival in Poland. The competition prevailed — a British prisoner of war observed one during the Revolutionary War. To this day, egg-tapping competitions are held in many areas of the world, including England and the U.S., and the event very seriously —­ every year on Easter, Marksville, Louisiana hosts an official egg tapping competition, complete with strict rules and regulations. Winners must prove their eggs are not fake by breaking them and eating them at the end of the event.

Celebratory: The White House Easter Egg Roll

The tradition of the White House Easter Egg roll dates back to 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes opened the White House lawn for the tradition after being approached by some children on one of his daily walks. Previously, children had celebrated Easter by playing games on Capitol Hill, but Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill banning the practice.

The White House Easter Egg Roll is still a tradition today. Besides the Egg Roll, the celebration also features stations where children and their families can decorate cookies, dye eggs and participate in an Easter Egg hunt.

PHOTO: Pool/Getty Images North America/Getty Images

International: Giant Omelette

To make an omelette, you've got to crack a few eggs ... or about 15,000 if you happen to live in Bessières, France. This town's Easter tradition involves making a huge omelette cooked in a frying pan with a diameter of nearly 14 feet.

The tradition likely owes its origin to Napoleon Bonaparte. As he and his army were passing through the area, he reportedly had an omelette that he enjoyed so much that he asked the villagers to make one that could feed his entire army.

International: Explosion of the Cart

In the U.S., we usually save fireworks for the 4th of July, but Florence uses them as part of an elaborate Easter celebration. A cart is packed with fireworks and led through the streets of the city before stopping outside the Duomo Cathedral. This 350-year-old Easter tradition is called Scoppio del Carro which translates to "explosion of the cart."

Once the cart stops in front of the Cathedral, the Archbishop of Florence lights a fuse during the Easter mass, setting off a lively fireworks display. The entire show is reportedly meant to ensure a good harvest.

The celebration of Easter takes place around the world, but few cultures refer to the holiday by that name. Early Christians called the celebration of Christ's resurrection "Pesach," the Hebrew word for Passover; today, most languages use a variation of that name: "Pesach" in French, "Pâques" in Spanish, "Pasqua" in Italian, "Pashkë" in Albanian and "Pask" in Swedish.

Our English word, Easter, comes from a stranger source: a pagan fertility goddess named Eostre (also known as Astarte or Oster). The festival of Eostre always took place around the spring equinox; so early Christian missionaries in Europe gradually melded the festival's name, timing and some of its symbols into the Christian celebration.

"Eventually, the Christian celebration took the place of the pagan festival."

Religious: Lent

One of the reasons we usually have a big feast on Easter is because of Lent. Originally, Lent required people to fast for 40 days (excluding Sundays), but these days it's more commonly observed by having people give up an indulgence, like caffeine, chocolate, television or social media.

As early as the 14th century, the Catholic Church discovered drama and ritual as effective methods for teaching the gospel to a populace that couldn't read, write or speak the traditional Latin used in church. The church developed practices, such as the Stations of the Cross and the Passion Play, to tell the story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection in accessible and compelling ways.

According to the Catholic News Service, the Stations of the Cross originally described a physical pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where participants would travel to 14 sacred sites related to Jesus' death and crucifixion, reciting prayers and singing songs. Eventually, Catholic Americans developed a spiritual practice of replicating the pilgrimage in their local churches, reciting the same prayers and songs.

The Passion Play, a dramatic presentation of Christ's trial, sufferings and death, became popular in the Catholic Church in the 15th century. One of the most famous in Oberammergau, Germany, started in the early 1600s, when the town vowed to perform a Passion Play every decade if God would spare the town from the plague. The death rate dropped dramatically after the play was held in the town cemetery, and the play has been performed in Oberammergau to sold-out crowds ever since.

In the U.S., modern Passion Plays often take the form of blockbuster movies, such as Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" released in 2004.

Religious: Lamb vs. Ham

Although the choice of what to serve for Easter dinner might come down to taste preference, for others the menu holds great significance.

In early Jewish history, lambs were sacrificed as offerings to God and served regularly as part of the Passover feast. Then when Jesus died during Passover, he became representative of the ultimate sacrifice for sin, the "lamb of God," and the animal evolved into a potent symbol for Christians, especially at Easter. Many Orthodox Christians still follow the Jewish Orthodox customs of not eating any pork so lamb takes center stage at their Easter meal.

Others, however, wouldn't imagine Easter without ham. Symbolizing "good luck" for many cultures around the world, it made a fitting meal at all sorts of feasts and celebrations, according to the Encyclopedia of Religion. Some historians believe Easter's spring timing also factored into the choice: Farmers typically slaughtered pigs in the fall and then took several months to smoke the pork, making a ham ready just in time for Easter dinner.

Celebratory: The Easter Bunny

Like many Easter traditions, the Easter bunny evolved out of ancient fertility and spring celebrations. Rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, and give birth in the spring. So, in places where the fields became overrun with baby bunnies, it was natural to incorporate the rabbit as a symbol for spring and, eventually, Easter.

From colored eggs to chocolate eggs to egg hunts, nothing says "Easter" like the incredible edible. Yet our modern take on collecting, dying and decorating eggs comes from a tradition dating back thousands of years, long before the time of Jesus Christ.

Many ancient cultures, including the Greeks and Egyptians, saw eggs as a sign of fertility and new life; they used eggs in religious rituals and hung them in pagan temples for mystical purposes, says Martha Zimmerman in her book "Celebrating the Christian Year."

Later, as Christian missionaries observed community members hunting for eggs in spring, they began using the food as a tool to describe Christ's new birth in resurrection.

"They would dye the eggs based on what colors meant to the church: yellow for resurrection, blue for love, red for the blood of Christ. Or, they would paint various scenes from the Bible on eggs and hide them; the child who found the egg would come back and tell the story painted on that egg," says Collins.

Another interpretation says that the Easter basket tradition began much earlier with farmers in Middle Eastern cultures. They would reportedly bring seedlings in a basket to be blessed in hopes of having a bountiful harvest.

Celebratory: Easter Candy

Every child knows that no Easter egg hunt is complete without the real prize: candy. Exchanging chocolates and other sweets at Easter gained popularity in Europe during the mid-19th century, as companies developed methods for mass producing sweets and unveiled confections in fancy holiday shapes and packages, like Cadbury eggs, which made their debut in 1875.

Jelly beans likely evolved from early fruit jellies such as Turkish Delight, a Middle Eastern delicacy. They entered the U.S. market sometime in the late-19th century, but didn't gain their Easter association until the 1930s, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America.

"We find no print reason for hawking jelly beans at Easter. It might be the shape [they look like eggs, which are connected with Easter] and color [bright or pastel]," says Lynne Olver, a food historian and editor of Foodtimeline.org.

As for the most important Easter candy question, "How do you eat a chocolate Easter bunny?," three out of four Americans start with the ears first, according to a survey by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and National Confectioners Association.

Purchasing a new holiday outfit may seem like a 20th century commercial invention but even early Christians followed the practice of wearing new clothes for Easter. "It was the one time of year when, if you had new clothes, you wore them. You dressed in your finest to go to church as a manner of honoring the resurrected savior," says Collins.

In America, stores soon latched onto the idea that creating Easter outfits and sales during the season would help them sell fancy bonnets for little girls and women or suits for boys and men. City-goers took to promenading down the street to show off their new attire, which on New York's Fifth Avenue eventually drew thousands of people and came to be known as the Easter Parade. The song "Easter Parade," written by Irving Berlin in 1933 and popularized by Bing Crosby in the movie "Holiday Inn" (1942) captured the fanciful mood of this new tradition.

Celebratory: Hot Cross Buns

These round breads embellished with crosses have been traced back to ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, where such foods served as symbols of honor toward their goddesses, according to the Oxford Companion to Food. Later, these sweet breads filled with currants and spices became popular Easter traditions, especially in England where bakers were forbidden to sell spice breads except on special holidays like the Friday before Easter.

Many English believed cross buns baked on Good Friday would never grow moldy; they were kept as good luck charms hanging in windows, accompanied sailors on a voyage or buried in piles of grain to ward off rodents. Today, they're mostly representations of the Christian symbol of the cross, and a sweet, buttery addition to an elegant Easter meal.

Celebratory: Easter Egg Hunts

The Easter egg has pre-Christian associations with spring, but much later, Christians related eggs to the resurrection of Jesus. The egg became a symbol for the tomb from which Jesus rose, just days after the crucifixion.

The first egg hunt can be traced back to Martin Luther, a central figure during the Protestant Reformation — men hid the eggs for women and children to find, probably because of this association between eggs and Jesus's tomb. The happy act of finding an Easter egg during the hunt is supposed to remind us of the joy that the women (believed to be Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Salome) felt when they came to Jesus' cave and found it empty.

Celebratory: Chocolate Bunnies

It's hard to know exactlywho created the first chocolate bunny, but it was probably someone of German descent, in either Germany or America. By 19th century Germany, pastry and sugar bunnies (some had hard boiled eggs inside of them) were in production and bunny-shaped tins, used for chocolate molds, have been traced back to Munich in the 1850s.

Jury's still out, though, because around the same time, Robert L. Strohecker, a business man in Pennsylvania, placed a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit in his drugstore's window. By 1925, people in the U.S. could order chocolate bunnies, a special Easter treat, from a catalog. The rest is (chocolate heaven) history.

Celebratory: Egg Tapping

Egg tapping, a common Easter game, goes by lots of different names — egg fighting, egg knocking, egg pacqueing, egg boxing, egg picking or egg jarping, just to name a few — and involves two people knocking the pointed ends of the eggs together until one egg cracks. The winner is the person whose egg has cracked the most eggs.

Egg tapping has origins in medieval times, where it was practiced during the Easter festival in Poland. The competition prevailed — a British prisoner of war observed one during the Revolutionary War. To this day, egg-tapping competitions are held in many areas of the world, including England and the U.S., and the event very seriously —­ every year on Easter, Marksville, Louisiana hosts an official egg tapping competition, complete with strict rules and regulations. Winners must prove their eggs are not fake by breaking them and eating them at the end of the event.

Celebratory: The White House Easter Egg Roll

The tradition of the White House Easter Egg roll dates back to 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes opened the White House lawn for the tradition after being approached by some children on one of his daily walks. Previously, children had celebrated Easter by playing games on Capitol Hill, but Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill banning the practice.

The White House Easter Egg Roll is still a tradition today. Besides the Egg Roll, the celebration also features stations where children and their families can decorate cookies, dye eggs and participate in an Easter Egg hunt.

PHOTO: Pool/Getty Images North America/Getty Images

International: Giant Omelette

To make an omelette, you've got to crack a few eggs ... or about 15,000 if you happen to live in Bessières, France. This town's Easter tradition involves making a huge omelette cooked in a frying pan with a diameter of nearly 14 feet.

The tradition likely owes its origin to Napoleon Bonaparte. As he and his army were passing through the area, he reportedly had an omelette that he enjoyed so much that he asked the villagers to make one that could feed his entire army.

International: Explosion of the Cart

In the U.S., we usually save fireworks for the 4th of July, but Florence uses them as part of an elaborate Easter celebration. A cart is packed with fireworks and led through the streets of the city before stopping outside the Duomo Cathedral. This 350-year-old Easter tradition is called Scoppio del Carro which translates to "explosion of the cart."

Once the cart stops in front of the Cathedral, the Archbishop of Florence lights a fuse during the Easter mass, setting off a lively fireworks display. The entire show is reportedly meant to ensure a good harvest.

Some of the most common Easter traditions have a surprising backstory. From fertility goddesses to biblical stories to German folklore, here's some of the totally fascinating history behind our popular Easter rituals.